A quick and dirty look at the Nvidia Shield’s PC game streaming

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We’ve talked about Nvidia’s Shield many times in the past, but now that it’s available it was time to test out the feature we’ve most been looking forward to. I gave the Shield’s PC game streaming capabilities a quick test run with a couple of Steam games that work great with a gamepad, mainly Rogue Legacy and Monaco.

Setup should have been easy, but I initially had a few bumps in the road, such as the Shield randomly disconnecting from the PC, experiencing extreme lag, and simply freezing up. I switched WiFi networks a few times and did Windows-style fixes (uninstalling, reinstalling, and restarting things), and eventually found a combination that worked. Keep in mind, the PC game streaming feature is currently in beta, so I didn’t fret much when the experience was less than ideal.

Instead of giving the play area the movie treatment, I wanted the videos below to capture what using the Shield to stream PC games was really like — moderate glare and all. I used the Shield’s speakers on full blast, and didn’t have the PC’s speakers plugged in, just like you would at home.

First up, a quick look at (and quick deaths in) Rogue Legacy:

Next up, the first level as the Locksmith in Monaco.

As you can see, the Shield’s 5-inch screen is very much a 5-inch screen. It’s difficult to make out unless you’re holding it right up to your face, just like any other portable gaming handheld. You can see that the blobs moving around on the screen matched up with the in-game action, meaning there was extremely little latency, often not noticeable at all. The sound, however, would experience a bit of latency and pop or cut out every now and then.

I tried to play some more “unsupported” Steam games, such as the controller-supported Hotline Miami, the controller-supported Dyad, and Antichamber, which doesn’t support a gamepad. Hotline Miami recognized the Shield’s left thumb stick and that was it, even after working on the controller settings. Dyad did not recognize the Shield, nor did Antichamber (though this one isn’t supposed to have gamepad support). So, out of games with gamepad support, we were two for four. Not too bad for a beta, but this makes me wonder if every game will have to receive specialized treatment in order to play nicely with the Shield.

Finallty I tested the Shield from about 30 or so feet away and it seemed to stream just fine, so bathroom-gamers rejoice. For now, though, the Shield will need to move out of beta for gamers to play more than a small handful of PC games.